Can we skip LED lights and go straight to 4 color diode laser white lights? "Photonics Spectra" (Jan 2012, page 20) reports that Sandia National Laboratory has produced white light that is superior in quality to current lighting technologies. They claim diode laser lights can also scale to brighter level than can be achieved with LEDs (which lose efficiency above 0.5 amp currents).

Can we believe lifetime estimates? When CFL bulbs were launched, they were touted as having 7 year lifetimes. Not including the infant mortality (5% of bulbs failed out of the box), I'd guess that 25% failed within a year. While they all got replaced at no cost, the mismatch between reported and actual lifetimes was striking. At least the CFL bulbs were cheap. LED bulbs are not.

I agree with you to some extent. I am concerned that in the cost sensitive regions of the world (e.g. India) it might take some more time to accept the LED lamps. Going with the experience with the CFL lamps: the CFL lamps were costly (they are still) when launched compared to incandescent lamps or the fluorescent lamps, but over last 5-7 years CFL lamps have become popular in India. It was partly because of your logic, some people were not so cost obsessive, may be because the cost of CFL lamps justified over the energy saving over the incandescent lamps…some due to the spreading of the awareness, marketing etc. But the cost of LED lamps is too high compared to the benefits that could be explained to these people.

Cree 231 Lumen Per Watt LED Shatters LED Efficacy Records – was the news reported on May 9, 2011.
http://www.cree.com/press/press_detail.asp?i=1304945651119
Now, it reports 148 LPW as an achievement. ???

Good point. Also because, LEDs tend to become gradually dimmer with age. Although this happens so gradually that people don't usually notice. So "lifetime" needs to consider replacement just because of lost lumens.
We have noticed this dimming over time with CFLs, more pronounced in the ones with very small twisty part, enclosed in a light bulb-like glass cover.

The LEDs are supposed to have a life of 25 years. If the associated electronics also lasts that long then LEDs will become a good lifetime investment for lighting and saving a huge amount of energy cost over their lifetime

This is a good advancement. The move to LED lighting will happen once it is better (cheaper) than what is available. The price of LED bulbs will continue to come down as the volume increases and the advancements in the science continue. I look forward to moving to that technology.

I think that having any new appliance that requires LESS power than what it replaces, for a change, can only be beneficial overall. That in itself is worth money.
Obviously, this can be taken to extremes, but it seems to me that it's wrong to dismiss these improvements, only on the basis that overall acquisition and operating costs are perhaps not quite low enough. Would anyone be so cost-obsessive, say, about their food? Never mind clothing?
Think of it this way. Flat panel TVs, especially plasmas, require considerably more power than the CRTs they replaced. Thank goodness we have LED lighting just around the corner that can actually compensate for this.